Navigate:

Opinion Contributor

Clean Water Act still essential

The Clean Water Act reversed harmful trends by changing the way people view water, the author writes. | Reuters

The House passed a bill last year (and two Senators recently introduced a companion) that would gut key provisions of the Clean Water Act. For four decades, the law has guaranteed that America’s water meets nationwide, minimum standards, no matter what state we live in. The new water bill would upend that system by limiting the federal government’s ability to step in when state water quality standards are not strong enough to protect public health.

That means dirty industries could go state shopping to find the place with the weakest standards to release their pollution. The bill is largely aimed at making it easier for coal companies to dump their mine waste into rivers and streams in Appalachia, and weakening standards for polluters that have helped turn many Florida rivers slimy green with algae. But residents of West Virginia, Kentucky and Florida deserve water that is just as clean as water in the rest of the nation.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Supporters of these dirty water bills dress up their opposition to safeguards with talk about states’ rights and EPA overreach. But don’t believe the rhetoric. Their efforts would strip away something Americans value: safeguards that protect their health and well being. According to a survey, nearly four out of five Americans (78 percent) want the Environmental Protection Agency to hold corporate polluters accountable for what they release into the community. Individual citizens can’t force dirty industries to clean up their mess, but national safeguards can.

Back in 1972, lawmakers recognized that cleaning our waterways was not a partisan issue, but a joint American undertaking that would benefit all of us. They passed the Clean Water Act with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans. It is time to recapture that sense of common purpose and make our water cleaner and safer.

And there is more work to be done. The Act significantly cut pollution from factories and sewage pipes, but now we need to tackle stormwater - the mix of rain, oil, toxic chemicals, and waste that runs over our streets and the largest source of water pollution nationwide. Cities are already demonstrating the power of green infrastructure — permeable pavement, rain gardens and green roofs — to simultaneously reduce stormwater and save money. Now the EPA should use its authority under the Act to promote green infrastructure in its upcoming stormwater standards. EPA should also restore the protections that the Act granted to headwater streams and isolated wetlands, but which the Supreme Court and the Bush administration substantially undermined.

The law provides authority to make these improvements. But if House GOP lawmakers have their way, the law will be gutted. No American wants their water supplies to become unsafe or their beaches to get dirtier. Instead of rolling back the progress our country has already achieved, it’s time to build on our clean water achievements.

Peter Lehner is the executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

I am a firm believer that the next BIG wars of the world will be over the lack if fresh water supply. Never in my wildest of imagination did I ever think that war would because of the "stupidity" of United State's elected leaders!!! Wake up people - don't take fresh clean water for granted! The politicians bring money into their own pockets from getting close to business polluters and then the taxpayer can, and will, fork out precious and senseless $$$$$$$$s to clean the mess up. It takes years to clean up and only a day to pollute. Clean water is the one of the top reason this independent just can not bring herself to vote for the GOP anymore. Pure STUPIDITY!

If you want to improve our environment, you have to stick to science and when you base policies on testing, you better make sure that such testing is correct. Unfortunately, when EPA implemented the Clean Water Act (CWA), it used an essential test incorrect and ignored 60% of the pollution in sewage Congress clearly intended to treat. Among the waste ignored was and still is all the nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste, while this waste besides exerting an oxygen demand, also is a fertilizer for algae and thus contributes to dead zones. In a recent article by Investigate West (www.invw.org) an EPA spokeswoman stated that EPA is only interested in the oxygen exertion caused by carbonaceous (fecal) waste and that urine is only important if sewage is discharged into ammonia sensitive waters. What she clearly does not understand is that nitrogenous waste not only directly exerts an oxygen demand (about 60% of that caused by fecal waste), but that each pound of nitrogen also causes the growth of about 20 pound of alga and if they die, they will exert an similar oxygen demand as caused by the fecal waste. Without removing any nitrogenous waste, one might as well dump raw sewage directly into open waters. The first thing that should happen is to apply this essential water pollution test correctly so we, after 40 years finally will know how sewage is treated in sewage treatment plants and what their effluent waste load is on receiving water bodies.

I would aver that nothing will prove more precisely the old Maxim: "What goes around, comes around", than the fact that what, we have, allowed to be Sprayed on our Crops, Spilled onto our Land -including the run-off from crops, Spewed into our Air, Buried in our Soil, DUMPED INTO OUR WATERS, left in our sub-surface as a result of Mining and Drilling operations, will soon be seen, smelt and tasted, in that order, as it comes back at us out of our spigots. Count on it! The potential for the survival of our environment is directly proportional to the, insatiable, sociopathic GREED of the "Special Interests" and their carte blanche to continue to Pollute, Deceive the Public and, then, Pollute some more! If not brought under control, GREED will soon take this great Country Down! We are our Environment’s Keeper! If not us, WHO? Certainly not those who are Profiting from its Destruction!

FRACKING: How many gallons of water does it take to recover One(1) Cubic Foot of natural gas? Water that must be contaminated by chemicals to make it useable in the recovery process as to render it permanently unuseable. Water that will remain so contaminated that it will be unfit to flush a toilet. I suspect that we will run out of drinkable water while trying to solve our energy problems! Who will be the winner here? I would hazard that there will be None! Tom Nass 5th Marine Division - WWII

Under Obama's leadership, the EPA has been stacked with far left radicals who want to do far more than keep our water clean and fight pollution; they want to use their ever expanding power to gain control over the free market, as cap and trade would, kill capitalism, mete out social justice, redress pass injustices to minorities, move to socialism/Marxism in the United States and eventually move to socialism/Marxism worldwide, just as Obama's card carrying communist, green jobs czar, Van Jones wanted to do.

I am interested in putting a stop to the ever expanding power of these unelected, far left bureaucrats who are all about killing liberty and freedom in America while trying to force their pie in the sky, unachievable hallucination of a "just society".